


Spencer Reid | Checkmate

by jupiterborn



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Chains, Crimes & Criminals, Drug Use, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Girls in Chains, Heavy Angst, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Kidnapping, Knifeplay, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Torture, Unsub | Unknown Subject
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:13:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29912622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jupiterborn/pseuds/jupiterborn
Summary: Reader is kidnapped by an old unsub with a vendetta against Spencer and the BAU races to find her before it's too late.
Relationships: Spencer Reid & Reader, Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s), Spencer Reid/Reader, Spencer Reid/You
Kudos: 27





	Spencer Reid | Checkmate

**Author's Note:**

> Word Count: 3.7k

I couldn’t see anything, wherever I was it was pitch black without a single sliver of light for my eyes to focus on. The only thing I could hear was ragged breaths escaping my lips as my panic grew and grew. My body was exhausted, further weighed down by what felt like a metal collar and matching cuffs at my ankles. My face stung and the distinct taste of blood stuck to my tongue. I was sitting on something soft; my fingertips dug into cotton sheets and I could feel a blanket or sheet of some sort covering my bare feet. Despite not being able to see where I was, my body gave me the distinct impression that myself and the mattress I was on were the only things in the room. Besides that, the room was most definitely devoid of anything else. The only thing keeping me from shivering being the sweatshirt that still hung from my body. Spencer’s sweatshirt. What little energy I had left I used to drag my hand over the letters on my breast, spelling out CalTech over and over in a failing attempt to ground myself. To calm my rapidly beating heart.  


“Fuck.” The word escaped my lips before I could stop them, hanging in the thick silence that filled the room. Just as quickly as it came out, the silence broke as a voice reverberated throughout the room.  


“I see the lovely subject has awoken.” A PA system crackled, sounding from all around me. It felt as though I was sitting in the middle of a vast movie theater. “How is she settling?”  


“Where am I?”  


“Somewhere safe.”  


Mhmm, that would be why I woke up restrained and bleeding, sitting in the middle of a pitch-black room talking to someone who refers to me as “the lovely subject.” But what came out of my mouth instead was a rushed spew of words, my voice rising as the panic steadily rose with every passing minute. “Who are you? Why am I here? Why’d you take me?”  


There was a pause before the crackle sounded again. “Who I am isn’t important. Not to you anyway.”  


A bright overhead light turned on with no warning, a projector along with it, lighting up the walls and ceiling that surrounded me. The room became alive with the horrible, terrified image of me. And it was live. As I turned my head to look throughout the room, so did projection Y/N. My hair was a bloody, matted mess, torn in spots from being yanked as I could now remember. I was right, a large, rusted metal collar adorned my neck. A long chain trailed from it to my ankles where two more cuffs secured me to the bed. My face was covered in cuts and scratches, trails of blood falling from my eyebrow and my nose explained the thick coating of blood on my tongue.  


A metal scraping sounded, accompanied by the opening of a door in the corner. There was nowhere for me to go, I was literally chained to my bed. So I was forced to sit there, cowering as far back into the corner of the mattress as I possibly could, as a man dressed head to toe in scrubs towed a cart towards me. I couldn’t see what was in the cart but I wasn’t left wondering for too long, as the man stopped in front of me and pulled out a needle, steadying his hand to pull some liquid from a small glass pharmaceutical bottle.  


“No. No. Please don’t. NO.” His grip was too hard for me to escape but that didn’t stop me from thrashing around and making his endeavor as hard as possible for him. My free arm flailed, hitting him square in the jaw with a smack and forcing him to put the needle down.  


“Don’t struggle and you won’t feel anything. This is what you get for struggling.” This time I was unable to free any of my body parts to fight back. His one hand gripped both of my wrists, practically cutting off circulation, and the scalpel he had picked up in favor of the needle dragged across the skin on my forearm. A scream sounded in the room. A scream that I realized had to be coming from me. His assault continued onto my palm, cutting lines into my fingers for no reason other than to hear me scream.  


“Please! Please stop! Please I won’t move any more! Please stop!”  


“Stay still and do not move.” He set down the scalpel, gripping the needle once again. Regardless of what he said, I couldn’t move even if I’d wanted to, his hand still harshly gripping my wrists. I felt the needle pierce my skin and then, as soon as he depressed the handle, I felt nothing. Hands pushed me down on the bed, my own arms now freed but body limp and mind empty, that last thing I saw before my eyes completely closed was the camera, sitting where the ceiling met the wall right across my bed.  
_____  


Doctor Reid came into work as usual that Tuesday. The travel mug you got him for his birthday full of coffee and securely in his left hand, bearing a selfie you took when you’d first started dating. He hadn’t heard from his girlfriend since he left apartment Sunday, but he figured that you just weren’t checking your phone, as you usually didn’t when you got particularly inspired to write, forgetting that anything but the laptop existed. It was not uncommon for you guys to go a couple days without talking, both of you led busy lives and had your own professions to worry about. And you both had a tendency to get wrapped up in your work, especially Spencer who often had to travel. Regardless, since Spencer was not currently traveling anywhere with the BAU, he had decided to go over to your house after this work day today while he still had the chance; another case was bound to come up any day now.  


So Doctor Reid went about business as usual, beginning to look over any files he had and any unfinished paperwork he had to complete, lost in his analog world. That’s why he didn’t notice when all of the screens in the department switched from their typical constant news feed roll to another. Didn’t notice when all of his team members looked up at the screens in alarm. Didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until the sound of a mug shattering as it hit the floor reached his ears and broke him out of his trance.  


“Spence!” JJ’s worried voice broke through after the mug, lifting the doctor from his paperwork. Her manicured finger pointed up at the screen behind him. He turned and, although he knew it was physically impossible, felt his heart fall out of his chest in shock.  


A live feed played on the screen. Your frame lost in his oversized CalTech sweatshirt was all the confirmation Reid needed. Y/N. On the screen was his precious girlfriend, bruised and bloodied, chain around her neck and ankles. You struggled to sit up on the mattress you were on, the liquids dripping from your body staining the white sheets beneath you. Your eyes struggled to stay open, a bruise in full bloom covering the left side of your face. It was all Spencer could do to hold back his heave and sob when you raised your head, looking directly into the camera, lips opening to release a plea. Help me. Then the screens all went dark.  


After the momentary stun, everyone in the BAU sprung into action. But Spencer didn’t move. He couldn’t move. His brain, for once, was completely devoid of any useful information and refused to let him rip one eye off of the now blank screen. She never would have been put in this position if it wasn’t for you. The intrusive thought echoed over and over in the doctor’s mind, and it was right.  


“This isn’t your fault.”  


JJ’s figure stepped between Spencer and the screen, intruding on his intrusive thoughts and quickly debilitating mental state. She always knew exactly what he was thinking. Of course she knew he would blame himself, any of the team members would do the exact same thing in his place. She put a hand on his shoulder, drawing the distraught profiler into her arms and bringing her lips to his ear.  


“This could have happened to her regardless, and you know this because if only the people that we love are the ones put into danger then our jobs wouldn’t exist. I know this is hard, especially for you. But you need to pull yourself together and bring the Doctor Spencer Reid I know back out here because if there’s anyone who can help find and save Y/N, it’s him.” She pulled away from him, Spencer blinking his eyes and regaining some of his usual self as she did. “Now come on, the team’s waiting at the round table.”  
_____  


Sitting in a room with no windows, the only thing keeping me company being my own bruised face, really doesn’t give one a way to track the time. On top of that, whatever was being injected into my veins really fucked with my perception of time even more so than a lack of daylight markers. Once the needle hit my skin, everything fell away and if my body did not immediately give up and go to sleep, then my head simply felt like I was on an endless carousel ride. Even if I wanted to mentally leave my body, the drugs kept me trapped within my skin. It felt like years since I was on the outside, although logically I know that was not possible. Spencer would not have let me stay lost for that long. All I could pray for is that Penelope could somehow hack her way into the surveillance that this monster had set up to watch me. The red blinking light a constant taunt. Who was watching on the other end?  


A sudden wave of nausea overtook and it was all I could do to throw myself towards the edge of the mattress, the neon yellow-green confirming that only stomach acid was coming out over the edge of the sheets. Moving was a struggle. The weight of the chains combined with my exhaustion and whatever coursed through my system making it almost impossible to lift my head and stare into the camera lens occasionally. Though I couldn’t be sure that the team was watching on the other end, somewhere, the hope that my boyfriend was watching over me right now gave my weak being solace. It kept me going, making me feel less alone and terrified.  


The screeching sound of metal on concrete signalled the entrance of my captor, the steady squeak squeak of wheels confirming that his instruments followed him. It was as if I was a DIY project, he just had fun and unwound by slowly peeling me from my own skin. It took all my strength to lift my head from its place on the edge of the mattress, his face was still covered with a light blue medical mask and the light from the screens reflected off his eyeglasses, making it impossible for me to see his eyes as well. The mans’ face was a mystery to me .  


“Up.”  
It was a simple command, leaving no room for misunderstanding. But it was a command that I could not fulfill, no matter how hard I tried to will my body to move, it refused. I hadn’t been fed or given water in what felt like forever and although the body can survive without either of those things for a while, I was way too exhausted from everything that's been done to me and given to me to be able to sit up. Once I tossed myself over the edge to yak, I knew this would happen. I had just hoped that he wouldn’t bother me for a while. Don’t know why you’re hoping for anything at this point. With every passing hour, it was harder and harder to ignore the intrusive thoughts in my brain. After all, they weren’t wrong. A minute passed and I still had not shifted from my position facing the ground.  


“If you do not get up, you will be punished.” His voice boomed from above you.  


“Please,” my voice sounded different, almost coarse. “I can’t. I’m trying. I can’t.” Tears spilled down my cheeks, their salt giving my mouth a reprieve from the acrid flavor that filled it from vomiting.  


His hand wrapped itself up in my hair, using it to pull me up from my prostrate position. I thought I could see a smile through the mask, but surely it was just my imagination. We remained like that for a short while. Him grinning and me hanging in front of him by my hair, trying my hardest to stop from crying out. Upsetting him meant punishment. But you already upset him, you couldn’t get up and now you’re going to get punished. My thoughts were corroborated as I was dropped, face first on the mattress. The sweatshirt was lifted off my back, leaving the skin exposed to the cold air in the room. Oh god. What’s-  


A sharp pain bloomed in my back and all I could do was scream and grip at the sheets as his bellowing laugh sounded from behind me and the never-ending torture continued.  
_____  


Penelope turned away from the screen as the cutting began, unable to continue watching her dear friend being tortured. Spencer couldn’t blame her, the only reason his eyes stayed glued to the screen, unaware of everything going on around him, was because the screen was his only guarantee that you were still alive. That you - his precious, innocent girlfriend - were still breathing and on this earthly plain. By tracking the movements of the scalpel, he could tell that the unsub was writing something on your back, it just wasn’t clear what exactly that was yet. Your body writhed beneath the man’s strong grip, hands white from gripping the sheets, eyes red and swollen from sobbing and, even though there was no audio to the video, Reid could see your face contorting in a scream.  


“I can’t track where it’s coming from,” Penelope’s voice cut through to Spencer, though his eyes remained on the screen. “The originating signal is being bounced off too many towers for me to be able to narrow it down, and it being streamed on hundreds of home servers isn’t helping in the slightest.”  


“Wait, home servers? As in-” Derek began.  


“Y/N has an audience besides us right now.” Penelope confirmed, tears threatening to spill over her glassy eyes. “And I can’t find where the video is coming from! I’m so sorry Reid, I’m trying, I’m really trying. I just-”  


“It’s alright Garcia, just continue to try and narrow the bouncing.” Hotchner looked as serious as ever but anyone on their team could tell he was deeply worried for the young doctor. Perhaps the entire situation even dredged up his old wounds with losing Haley. “Reid. Reid.”  


His continued name calling struck Reid out of the trance of staring at the screen where you continued to writhe and scream, where he was unable to get to you and help you. You might not find her in time, and it’ll be all your fault, acting like a broken toy right now. The doctor looked up to find Hotch staring at him, clearly having asked a question. “I’m sorry what? I didn’t catch that.”  


“I asked you when the last time you saw Y/N was.”  
Reid searched his brain, this answer should come easily but it was as if he heard his inner self hit a literal wall. “I-I’m not sure. It wasn’t for a while, I assumed we both just got caught up with work. B-but I think it was Sunday. Yeah Sunday. I-I left her apartment and then only realized today that we hadn’t talked in a while. I was so stupid! I-I just assumed that she got caught up writing, she does that sometimes, and I got so caught up with work that more time passed than I had even realized. Oh my god, I’m so stupid. If I was just there. I should’ve been there, or I should’ve checked in. I should’ve-”  


“Reid. There’s nothing you can change now, and none of this is your fault. You know this. You know you can’t blame yourself.” JJ sent a pleading look to her best friend, knowing he would not want to be touched at a point when he was already so over-stimulated by the matter at hand.  


“Technically I can blame myself. The mere fact that I am doing so right now proves that I have the ability to do so. Just because one should not do something doesn’t completely eradicate the possibility of it being done.”  


“I- well, yes. There we go. Stay with that. Stay with the Reid we know. Focus on the facts.”  


A movement on the screen caught everyone’s attention. Y/N’s limp body was being held up, exposed back to the camera, the writing bloody and visible to the viewers.  


Checkmate. Blood spilled out of the brutally scrawled letters, trailing down Y/N’s back and onto the concrete below the bed.  


She’s going to die. You’re going to lose- Spencer’s intrusive thoughts halted as he noticed something on the screen. An almost imperceptible reflection on the screen behind Y/N.  


“I know where she is. Suit up!”  
_____  


There is a moment between unconsciousness and consciousness where you just float. You are neither here nor there, don’t feel or hear or see anything. You both are and are not. Then it all comes slamming back into you, like an empty shell being reinhabited by its soul.  


Regaining consciousness after having my back carved into should have been painful. I knew this, had felt the hundred-foot drop that was coming back from the haze. But instead, it was as though I was still floating in the in-between, but I was floating within my own body. Only a dull throb told me that my back had in fact been sliced into, though it wasn’t nearly in as much pain as it was in when my brain decided to allow me the peace of passing out. Now I just lay on the mattress, staring up at the concrete ceiling, the exposed pipes and beams, knowing I should probably roll over if I wanted to let the wound attempt to start healing but physically unable to move. Everything in me wanted to give up, maybe some part of me already had, perhaps that’s why I felt as though in a cloudy haze.  


“FBI!”  


The distant shouts barely registered, so did the gunshots that followed. There were no gunshots. You’re hearing things, Y/N. The voice within me spoke and I agreed. Continuing to stare at the ceiling, still unable to move. The door opened, scraping against the concrete floor. A sound I had grown accustomed to. Desperately, I tried to summon what little energy I had to drag my weak body to the corner. Away. Away. Hands held me down and all I could muster was a whisper.  


“No...please…”  


“Y/N. Y/N, it’s me. Spencer. Come on baby, open your eyes, look at me.”  


My lids opened. Spencer’s face entered my vision, my beautiful, blurry boyfriend. That’s not Spencer. You’re seeing things, Y/N. Just close your eyes and go to sleep. The voice was right, my eyes shutting of their own volition. It was exhausting keeping them open. Fingers skimmed the skin of my inner elbow, skin that was now marred with holes and bruising. No, there’s nothing there. And if there is, it’s just him back to hurt you some more. My eyes shut completely, mind drifting off into the sweet embrace of sleep.  
_____  


I awoke to the sterile sound and smell of the hospital; yells from outside the room muffled ever so slightly by the door and a steady beeping from the monitor next to my bed. Looking down, my right inner elbow was bandaged and the other arm had an IV attached to it, a steady drip, drip flowing through the tube delivering god-knows-what to my veins. Although it wasn’t an uncomfortable temperature in the room, my body shivered and shook, not stopping no matter how hard I tried. The horrible feelings would stop if they just gave you a little bit of what he gave you.  


“No,” I shook my head as if that would get rid of the thought, the thought that I knew was right.  


“You’re awake!”  


Spencer’s voice rang from the corner of the room, I failed to notice his body asleep on the chair next to me in my discomfort. He shot up, carefully coming close to awkwardly hug me, trying to arrange his limbs in a way that wouldn’t touch anything that shouldn’t be touched. My eyes closed involuntarily, breathing in the scent that I’d missed. The smell of safety and comfort. The smell of home and love. His lips found mine and, at the feeling, tears started rolling down my cheeks as relief washed over and through me. The kiss broke only when I made the mistake of trying to raise my right arm to tangle in his hair, letting out a hiss at the pain that radiated through my arm and back. Spencer pulled back but didn’t let go of my face, his hand cradling my jaw, thumb rubbing over my cheek.  


“I love you.” The only three words that could truly encompass how much I’d missed him. How scared I was. How truly relieved to the very soul I was that him hovering over me while I laid in the bed on the precipice of death was not just me seeing things.  


“I love you.” The words came out of his mouth thick with the tears he didn’t dare spill in front of me. Tears at what could have been, but what was luckily not. His body came down to envelope you again, both of you gripping the other as if they were the only thing real in the entire world. His lips swept across your ear, whispering with a raspy voice, “I’ll never let you go ever again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This is my first time publishing on AO3, so I apologize because I'm still getting used to how everything works :)


End file.
